Material recovery solutions focus on industries like manufacturing, construction, and consumer goods, where waste management is a significant challenge. These latest advances include lithium upcycling, material recovery platforms, rare metal earth recovery, and nutrient recovery.
By leveraging advanced processes, data analytics, and sustainable methodologies, the startups enhance resource efficiency, reduce waste, and support circular economy goals. Read on to explore their transformative solutions.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights Emerging Material Recovery Startups to Watch
Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering over 5M+ startups, 20K+ technology trends plus 150M+ patents, news articles & market reports, we identified the top material recovery startups.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights emerging material recovery startups you should watch in 2025 as well as the geo-distribution of these material recovery startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. The top 5 Startup Hubs for material recovery are London, New York City, Los Angeles, Bangalore, and Berlin.
Meet Emerging Material Recovery Solutions to Watch in 2025
We hand-picked startups to showcase in this report by filtering for their technology, founding year, location, funding, and other metrics. These material recovery startups work on solutions ranging from lithium upcycling and green plastic recovery to molecular separation technology to nutrient recovery.
- Purity ReSource – Isopropanol Purification System
- GreenLIB – Lithium Upcycling
- Metastable Materials – Integrated Carbothermal Reduction
- Black Square – Material Recovery Platform
- Terracle – Green Plastic Recovery
- REMRETEch – Rare Earth Metal Recovery
- Urban Metals – E-waste Metal Extraction
- Retein – Molecular Separation Technology
- Solute Smart – Reverse Osmosis Recovery
- Walnut – Nutrient Recovery
1. Purity ReSource
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: USA
- Solution: Isopropanol Purification System
Purity ReSource develops modular isopropanol purification systems that recycle technical-grade or spent IPA to electronic-grade purity levels. The system employs modular processing technologies to remove trace metals to parts per trillion and moisture to parts per million, operating at purification rates of 2-4 kg per minute while accommodating site-specific waste challenges in semiconductor manufacturing. By enabling on-site recycling, the technology reduces IPA-related costs and eliminates emissions.
The startup’s closed-loop solution replaces linear chemical consumption with sustainable reuse practices. This helps semiconductor manufacturers achieve cost efficiency while minimizing environmental impact through localized material recovery systems.
2. GreenLIB
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Canada
- Solution: Lithium Upcycling
GreenLIB offers a recovery technology for extracting critical materials from spent lithium-ion batteries. It optimizes the extraction of lithium and graphite through proprietary hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes.
The GreenLIB platform enhances the rejuvenation of electrolytes using proprietary chemical treatments and adapts to various battery chemistries, including NMC, LFP, and LMFP. Smelters and recyclers benefit from GreenLIB’s high-purity material recovery by minimizing waste generation.
3. Metastable Materials
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: India
- Solution: Integrated Carbothermal Reduction
- Funding: Secured USD 150 000 pre-seed funding
Metastable Materials develops the Integrated Carbothermal Reduction extraction of critical metals like cobalt, lithium, copper, and aluminum in standard commodity forms from waste lithium-ion batteries. This extraction produces high-purity lithium carbonate, and cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and copper.
4. Black Square
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: UK
- Solution: Material Recovery Platform
Black Square provides a material recovery platform that transforms industrial waste and end-of-life products into reusable resources through AI-driven sorting and processing systems. The startup combines modular recovery facilities with proprietary data analytics to identify optimal material streams.
It also partners with manufacturers to implement closed-loop recycling solutions for niche materials that traditional systems often discard. Its platform integrates real-time monitoring of waste composition and market demand, which enables clients to recover high-purity secondary materials while reducing landfill reliance across operations.
The scalable recovery infrastructure in emerging markets facilitates partnerships between brands and local recyclers. It creates a circular supply chain that simultaneously lowers production costs and diverts processed materials from incineration.
5. Terracle
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: South Korea
- Solution: Green Plastic Recovery
Terracle transforms hard-to-recycle plastics into high-quality recycled materials through low-temperature depolymerization technology. It breaks polymer chains into reusable monomers at atmospheric pressure.
The system processes mixed plastic waste streams, including textiles, automotive components, and marine debris. Terracle uses chemical recycling methods that operate with short reaction times while avoiding high-energy pyrolysis approaches.
The process recovers base monomers that manufacturers reintegrate into new production cycles. It also enables true circular plastic economies while reducing microplastic pollution risks associated with traditional disposal methods.
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6. REMRETEch
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Switzerland
- Solution: Rare Earth Metal Recovery
REMRETEch recovers rare earth metals from electronic waste through a modular hydrometallurgical process that selectively extracts critical materials using customized solution chemistry. The system processes complex e-waste streams through sequential dissolution and precipitation stages in open-pot reactors.
The process achieves high purity for individual rare earth elements while accommodating diverse feedstock compositions from urban mining sources. Its modular design enables direct scalability across different operational environments, which eliminates energy-intensive smelting processes and reduces hazardous byproduct generation compared to conventional methods.
The technology transforms discarded electronics into high-purity rare earth oxides ready for industrial reuse. It addresses supply chain vulnerabilities by localizing the production of materials critical for renewable energy systems and advanced electronics.
7. Urban Metals
- Founding Year: 2019
- Location: India
- Solution: E-waste Metal Extraction
Urban Metals specializes in e-waste recycling by utilizing proprietary techniques to recover valuable base and precious metals. It uses a hydrometallurgical process to extract tin with a high degree of purity, which is essential for electronics and various industrial alloys. The startup uses an electrorefining technique to upgrade copper purity, producing high-quality granulated and ingot forms.
The startup also performs selective recovery of other metals, including lead and aluminum, employing efficient chemical and physical separation processes to maximize yield and purity. Further, processing e-waste locally reduces transportation costs and carbon footprint while improving local economic growth.
8. Retein
- Founding Year: 2019
- Location: Sweden
- Solution: Molecular Separation Technology
- Funding: SEK 11 million
Retein enables resource recovery from water using patented molecular separation technology inspired by nature. The platform employs channel proteins, specifically aquaporins, to achieve high precision and energy-efficient separation of water and valuable resources.
Aquaporins act as highly selective channels, which allow only specific molecules to pass through, optimizing resource recovery. This technology benefits industries by providing a sustainable method to extract resources, reducing dependence on traditional mining.
Retein stabilizes proteins with silica, creating water-recovery capsules incorporated into polymer membranes. These membranes outperform conventional separation methods in water purity and energy efficiency.
9. Solute Smart
- Founding Year: 2019
- Location: USA
- Solution: Reverse Osmosis Recovery
Solute Smart specializes in recovering freshwater and valuable minerals from highly saline water brine left by oil and gas production. It uses an advanced membrane distillation technology. This startup achieves zero liquid discharge of reverse osmosis (RO) retentate, which ensures no wastewater is left untreated. It extracts high-value minerals such as lithium, iodine, and bromine with high efficiency.
Industries benefit from significant reductions in water consumption and minimal discharge of brine solutions. Solute Smart also integrates nanofiltration and advanced oxidation processes to enhance the purity and recovery rates of extracted resources.
10. Walnut
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Spain
- Solution: Nutrient Recovery
Walnut focuses on nutrient recovery from industrial wastewater using a hybrid system integrating photoautotrophic and heterotrophic microalgal cultivation. This technology involves a three-stage process, firstly a two-stage microalgae cultivation that consumes organic matter and nutrients.
Secondly, a separation phase that recovers the solid fraction of microalgae as a high-value byproduct and the liquid fraction as reusable water. It also involves a drying stage using a spray dryer to obtain dry microalgae.
The startup’s system employs a scale-up heterotrophic bioreactor, which ensures weather-independent operation and significant savings in scale-up time and footprint. The system also utilizes a conventional bioreactor that simplifies the treatment and enhances operational efficiency. The compact design is containerized for easy portability and is powered by solar energy from an integrated photovoltaic system.
Discover All Emerging Materials Startups
This overview highlights just a few material recovery solutions from 600+ new companies currently covered by the Discovery Platform. To explore them all, book a personalized demo or download our free Materials Innovation Report for a quick overview.
